


Rebellion

by Deastrumquodvicis



Category: Sherlock (TV), The Prisoner (1967)
Genre: Gen, prisonerlock
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-06
Updated: 2012-07-06
Packaged: 2017-11-09 07:53:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 5,254
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/453100
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Deastrumquodvicis/pseuds/Deastrumquodvicis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Number 58, a Village-born doctor in charge of arrivals, encounters the most stubborn Outsider to date--Sherlock Holmes.  He befriends him in an attempt to tame him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. 1

**Author's Note:**

> The prompt was for a Sherlockian creativity fest. Prompt: Dystopia, must include "Then there was only the ocean and the sky and the figure of a man"

Rebellion. The term was alien to Number 58. Well, not alien, exactly, just…wrong. It was a foul word, an evil word, and a concept to be feared. It violated everything.

Outsiders usually tried it, but they were either broken in the end, a product of too much freedom, or taken for Social Conversion. The most extreme cases were never seen again. No one had ever gotten anywhere from it except into deep pain.

"Good morning!" The ever-cheerful tannoy brightened up 58's run with its promise of sunshine ("maybe a light shower in the afternoon") and the joyous music that followed. 58 grinned and increased his pace.

Life in the Village was, of course, perfect. There was no reason to want to escape, no reason why anyone would ever want to leave. 58 had lived here his whole life, and never once did he entertain the idea of being somewhere else. (59, his sister, had, and one time she'd actually managed to cause an orange alert. She wasn't doing that again.) Why bother living anywhere else?

Right now, 58 was doing his morning run, keeping in shape. His father, from an early age, had impressed upon him the importance of discipline, rules, regulations, self-restraint. It was something that 58 had adopted, too, as much a part of his life as the penny-farthing badge perpetually pinned to him or his number. Apparently, before coming to the Village, his father had been in a thing called an army. 58 thought that term only applied to ants, but he didn't really care. He was a good Village citizen now, followed all the rules, never made a fuss, never spoiled things. As for 58, he was a doctor. A damn good one, at that. He'd saved people, mostly the elderly or Outsiders so desperate to get out of the Village that they'd tried to take their own lives. It always bothered him to see that pointless blackness swirling inside the eyes of his patients. Why would they want to die when everything was handed to them on a platter? They didn't have to go the woods and kill animals for food, they cooked what they wanted, if they wanted, and there was never any danger of sleeping outside (and if you did, you were tempting Rover.)

As usual, the scenery was breathtaking. The mountains loomed over like the protective barrier they were, the shining sea below sparkling with warmth, and the breeze was cool in the morning, as always. 58 didn't know how long the Village had stood there, but it didn't matter—nothing before his own life mattered. The Village was just there, a constantly safe place to live and love. He finished his run just in time for the Village to get really busy.

58 hummed along with the minuet playing over the radio as he showered. His sandy-brown hair lathered easily, cropped short and wiry. He wondered whether or not he'd see a new face today, an Outsider that he'd get to know. Maybe a woman. Of course, 58 had plenty of girlfriends in his life, but he was always looking for someone new, a fresh blonde who was intelligent and whose laugh was like the sun. He'd dreamed of her once or twice, but didn't know her, so he kept up hope that soon, she'd come through the door, even if she were just on a gurney. He smiled as he rinsed himself off, remembering her gorgeously asymmetrical face, her tender touch. Why was she so vivid in his dreams?

He shaved, dressed, and moved on to the hospital, taking his morning tea as he went over the charts. 153 had broken his leg (he was only seven years old), 204 had passed on in the night (old age), 64 had tried to kill herself again (Outsider), and there was only one arrival today. 58 shared the arrival check-overs with several of the other doctors, making sure they hadn't had a bad reaction to the drugs that got them here, running baseline tests, generally making sure that the unconscious people coming to live a better life in the Village were going to be alright. 97, a shorter man with glasses, set his coffee on 58's desk, and smiled.

"Got a new one in today." 97 was an Outsider who had come to work for the Village. He could do with cutting back the size of his breakfasts, but he was as healthy and happy who lived here should be.

"Oh?" 58's eyebrows went up.

"Yeah, according to his file, he's a genius with an IQ of 190. You don't see that every day."

His file. Oh. "Really?"

97 smiled. "You get first crack at looking him over. Number 16."

The man was odd, both physically and, according to his file, mentally. He was already starting to wake up, muttering in one of the Underground languages, and his file mentioned past misuse of chemical substances. That was something else 58 couldn't understand, except that perhaps, they were looking for something that they couldn't find Outside, something the Village could bring to them. 58 sedated him again, but not before he caught sight of 16's strangely silver eyes opening. There was fierce intelligence in those eyes, and 58 saw that even in the half-second that 16 was awake, he was trying to gather as much information as he could on his surroundings. They looked straight at 58 and somehow he knew that 16 had, in that moment, figured out his whole life and stored it away as if he were a computer.

58 did not sleep well that night.


	2. 2

Another boring day. Sherlock opened his eyes, prepping for the onslaught of the inevitable agony of tedium, even though he was finishing up a case. Well, he called it a case. It was really just the emotional manipulation of someone who used to have the nation in her claws, but now had come to him, pleading for mercy. He saw no reason to give it to her.

He stared at her phone. There were secrets in here, she'd said, that could topple empires. Financial empires? Governments? Both? He didn't know and didn't care. He just wanted that information. Of course, he was only on this case to begin with because Mycroft brought it to attention, and he'd only accepted because he enjoyed tangling with the people who enjoyed toying with others (he liked to play with them right back). He didn't know her password, had tried three times and only had one go left at it before it would lock forever. He could feel the answer staring him in the face, he just couldn't see it for some reason. She looked at him pleadingly from across the room, gulping, and he was hit with a bolt of inspiration. "Disguise is a reflection of oneself," he muttered. "But this is far more intimate. This is your heart." He smiled at her. "And you should never let it rule your head."

I AM  
 **SHER  
** LOCKED

Simple enough, once he'd realized that she could fall prey to sentiment. She fell silent, deep into shock. She didn't expect him to think of it, of him being the key, but when he did, her whole world crumbled. Lestrade escorted her out of Sherlock's flat, and, just before turning over the phone to his brother, Sherlock copied all the information to his hard disk, just for fun, just to give him something to do.

That was his mistake.

Three solid days of sleep later (as usual, he'd not slept on the case except for the occasional catnap), he was looking through the files. Irene Adler had been right. This information, in the wrong hands, could undoubtedly destroy all sorts of organizations, from government secrets to banking empires to world-wide scandals, possibly even starting World War III. Sherlock smiled. Somehow, the power pleased him. The thought that he knew something almost no one else did made him glow with secret pride.

He read the entire file, nearly two gigabytes of information, before noticing he was lightheaded. He hadn't had anything to drink in days.  _Ah_ , he thought _. Disorientation as a result of prolonged dehydration and sleep-deprivation._  He watched as the milk swirled into his tea, thinking about the molecules of humanity bumping up against one another in their lives.

Their boring, simple, pointless lives.

The swirling was hypnotic, and Sherlock found himself staring as the milk and tea spun in circles, in a tight funnel of liquid, both stimulant and sedative, focusing, almost…mystical. What was he thinking? Mystical? It was hardly a force of unusual properties, just tannins and water and lactose and sucrose. He blinked heavily. He hadn't felt like this since Irene had used her knockout drug on him, but this was taking its sweet time about it.

It was about that time that he realized his head was actually spinning. He staggered over to the sofa, intending to rest it off, but his mind decided it had other plans—as soon as he was down, he was up again, looking for the source of whatever was causing the alarming wooziness. He didn't know if he'd been poisoned or simply drugged, and he felt alarm bells and alerts going off in his head as his brain stopped being able to make sense of what was around him. He wasn't unconscious, it just took far too much effort to interpret his senses.

"Mnghf," he said, keeling forward. The last thing he registered was that the room was still tumbling about even as he knew he was still.

In the brief moment in which he regained consciousness, he registered a few things.

_Humidity not that of London._

_Laboratory or hospital._

_Medical personnel observing—preliminary examination._

_Man, numbered badge (58), age late thirties to early forties, naïve, doctor, comfortable life, single, generally content._

There was a sharp pinprick and he blacked out again, but Sherlock was determined not to forget that man's face.


	3. 3

For some reason, Number 58 couldn't get Number 16's face out of his head. Normally, new arrivals would be examined and taken to their new homes, while exact duplicates of their sitting rooms or bedrooms would be made, to ease the transition into their new, better lives. 58 would check them over with clinical detachment, but always made it a point to be one of the first people to welcome them when they regained consciousness. He was, after all, a doctor, and while not a psychiatrist, he was told he had the best bedside manner of anyone in the hospital.

But this time, he didn't want to. There was something about 16 that…unnerved him. He was not used to feeling anxious, not used to uncertainty or the feeling of danger. 16 had introduced a rogue element into 58's life. A potential taint. The possibility of something going haywire.

Nevertheless, 58 decided he would keep to his routine and visit Number 16.

* * *

Sherlock looked around the room. It was almost identical to the sitting room of 221B, right down to the spray-painted smiley face and the chemical staining where he'd tripped and fallen one afternoon, flinging his experiment out of reach. The violin sat where it always sat, the laptop off but present. But something was wrong. That drugged memory came back to the surface, the hospital room, and the gentle doctor. It was not a good memory.

The telephone rang. Sherlock answered. "Good morning, Number 16," a soft voice said. Sherlock made no reply, trying to work out what was going on. "Uh, hello, are you there?"

"Yes."

"Okay, good, I hope you don't mind, but I'm coming 'round shortly."

"Who is this?" Sherlock didn't like not knowing things, and right now he was at a definite disadvantage.

"This is Number 58."

"Your name. What's your name?"

There was silence on the other end. "Yes, well, I'll explain everything when I get there."

Sherlock hung up. He took in all his surroundings, every tiny difference between here and home. In some places, it was perfect—the paint was the same, the books were the same, the furniture identical. But other places, places only chaos could create, were slightly off. Stains and spills and burnt edges were often not quite right. The average mind would never have noticed. But Sherlock was hardly average.

* * *

58 felt as nervous as he had the day he had first gone to the employment office. He still wasn't sure why. Just something about Number 16 was…off. He'd read the file, of course. 16 was brash, rude, borderline sociopathic, dangerously reckless, manipulative, rebellious, and stubborn, everything that the Village taught was wrong. This man was a time bomb. So 58 decided that he was going to take initiative to try to tame him. He took a deep breath, nodded, and rang the doorbell.

* * *

Sherlock rose from his chair to answer, but the door opened of its own accord.  _Annoying._  A man came inside, the same man from his dream _. Military bearing—possible military background or family member with military training. Unlikely to be military himself._

"Yes, hello, I'm Number 58, I called earlier?" 58 extended a hand, which Sherlock cautiously took. "So, let's take you on a tour of the Village, get you introduced, shall we?"

"Why?" The single syllable made 58 nervous. It didn't do to ask too many questions.

"Well, it's hard to adjust sometimes, people get upset when they find things out on their own, and I figure it would be nice to have someone you know around." 58 shrugged as he spoke.

"But I don't know you."

"Well, you can get to know me." 58 was trying, he really was. "I've lived here my whole life, I know where the best places to eat are, what sort of activities we have, where the Borders are, all sorts of stuff that you're gonna need to know."

"I'm not staying." Sherlock didn't like being forced into anything against his will, and this was no exception—in fact, it seemed to be the epitome. He'd had enough of it with Mycroft— _oh_. "Mycroft," he muttered.

"Sorry?"

Sherlock scowled. "My brother, Mycroft. He's behind all of this. Or people like him."

"Why do you call him Mycroft?"

"His name."

"…oh." Now they'd hit on a very uncomfortable subject. 59 had, in her teenage years, adopted a name, calling herself Harriet, and had nearly been declared unmutual. "Name."

"Problem?"

"Yeah. Names are…well, they're just not right." 58 turned away and scratched his chin. "They're not natural."

"And numbers are?" Sherlock was liking this place less and less. He'd only met one person, but he seemed brainwashed beyond hope.

"Yes! No! I don't know. Just…can we not?"

_There is hope._

"I'll consent to a tour." Sherlock was curious now. He hated bureaucracy, and this seemed worse than most, and if he was going to do anything about it, he was going to need someone on the inside, someone who he could get to tell him things without realizing they were doing so. This Number 58 seemed just the right person for the job.


	4. 4

What interested Sherlock most about this village was how utterly self-contained it was. It had obviously been created out of Cold War paranoia, names erased so as to provide people with the security to make friends with the enemies they used to have. Secrets could be stolen. There was certainly more to the Village than met the eye. It was not the utopia it pretended to be.

Everything was named simply. There was The Hospital. The Lawn. Old People's Home. It was functional, Sherlock had to give it that. There was no confusion as to where someone meant.

"Right, and last, we'll visit the Green Dome." 58 had finished his Village tour, doing almost all of the talking, while Sherlock had done almost all of the watching "What do you think?"

"I think it's demeaning, insulting, mind-numbing, dull, and I've moved my escape schedule forward a few weeks." Sherlock had never been one to mince words.

"…okay, right." 58 didn't know what he was expecting, maybe a half-hearted _It's okay_ , or a blatantly false  _Wow, it's great_ , but he didn't expect blunt honesty. "Well…I'll see you in a few minutes then?"

"Mm," was all the reply Sherlock gave him as he strode into the little room with its false antiques. The internal door slid open, revealing a large circular room, a globe chair in the middle. The chair turned, and a tall middle-aged man stared at him.  _Lifelong bureaucrat._

"What is it you want?" Sherlock's voice was deliberately cold.

"Nothing much, Mr. Holmes." He gestured to another chair, rising from the floor. "Take a seat, please."

Sherlock didn't sit. He did, however, raise an eyebrow. "I thought you lot didn't approve of names."

"Ah, well, you're new. We can't expect you to make a complete adaption to Village life in a few hours." The man smiled charmingly. "We noticed you took an interest in the stolen files of one Irene Adler."

"Obviously."

"Yes, well, we were just wondering why. We've been after her for years, never could catch her, but somehow you did. And when you did, you took her files, copied them to your computer. Normally we'd just erase them, but you have a reputation as a bit of a walking computer." (Sherlock smirked.)

"And you think I'm going to misuse my knowledge."

"We think that's a possibility, yes. All we want is for you to settle down, have a quiet life out of the public eye."

Sherlock rolled his eyes. "Was there anything else or am I free to go about plotting my escape?"

The man's eyes narrowed dangerously. "We really wouldn't advise that."

"I know." Sherlock walked out.

58 looked up from kicking a rock. "So, how'd it go?"

"He made everything perfectly clear," Sherlock said. "The mere act of storing certain pieces of information in my mind is enough to warrant my presence here." He saw a sign that made him feel almost queasy.  _Questions are a burden to others. Answers are a prison to oneself_. "I knew something and they thought it was worth imprisoning me. I intend to make it not worth their while."

58 looked around guiltily. "Can you try to keep it down? You've not been here a day, you don't want to get declared unmutual."

"Why?"

"Well…no one goes near an unmutual."

"Doesn't bother me."

"That's what they all say," 58 hissed. "Look, if you get really bad, they'll have to…you know," he said, pointing at his temple. "Social Conversion."

"Lobotomy?"

58 looked up, shiftily, as if this was forbidden knowledge. "Basically."

"In that case, I shall endeavour to avoid antagonizing them." He didn't mean it, not entirely. But as of yet, he had no idea where the moral boundaries of this Village were and for right now, he felt it better to assume they would do anything.

* * *

Sherlock seemed to acclimatize well after that, even joining the Village orchestra. He wasn't joining in because he wanted to, of course, he was just looking to find the pressure points, the little things that could make this house of cards fall to the ground.

"You're ignorant of the outside world," he'd told 58. "I am going to educate you. Nothing dangerous."

" _Any_  rebellion is dangerous, 16. Things are the way they are for a reason!"

"You say that, but there's always been a little nagging voice, a little hint of doubt. Some small part of your mind keeps telling you there's something wrong." Sherlock inwardly smiled as 58 fidgeted. "Don't bother trying to hide it."

"Yes, fine, I'll take the bloody lessons, if only to shut you up in public." It wasn't that. His father, on his deathbed, had turned to 58 and whispered his dying words:  _Promise you'll get out._  He'd never told anyone, but now he needed to know why his father had been so insistent.

Sherlock smiled.

* * *

"First element of the life outside. Names. You have two, in most societies, a family name and a personal name or two. Mine is Sherlock Holmes. You talk to someone by their first name, Sherlock, in my case." Sherlock felt a bit silly, teaching a grown man about something that most people he knew instinctually understood.

"So…names are like your number." 58 was trying to understand.

"Yes."

"And they get recycled after you die, like your number."

"No. Sometimes. It depends on the family." His own name had come from his great grandfather, and Mycroft's from the same on his father's mother's side. "Some people are sentimental enough to do that." Sherlock watched 58, seeing him think. "Choose a name."

"What? No, you can't—that's—no!"

"For private use only. During these little lessons."

58 sighed. "Fine. I guess John."

"Why John?" The act of choosing an alias was an interesting one. All sorts of psychology went into it, and the twisted mentality of the Village made things a bit more interesting.

"I dunno. It's just…familiar somehow."

"Alright then, John, let's begin."


	5. 5

Sherlock got John to use his name more and more. It was a step in the right direction, at least. John was quickly becoming the closest thing he had to a friend here, the only person he felt he could really trust. There was surveillance everywhere, of some sort, and Sherlock secretly wondered how he'd been allowed to get so far into his lessons. Surely they were being monitored.

At any rate, the two were nearly inseparable, and Sherlock quickly gained a reputation as both a master violinist and a chess champion. He knew people kept an eye on him. He expected John was probably one of them. There were times when Sherlock felt that John was just appeasing him, feeling that in order to keep him under control, he'd do as instructed, but there were other times when he thought John was genuinely interested in the outside world and what it was like. John had no concept of governments or wars or anything of that nature. Sherlock had to explain that not every society worked like the Village, mindless drones wandering in a daze that may not have entirely been unassisted.

The third week of the second month, Sherlock awoke to a most unpleasant sensation. It was as if his head had been stuffed with cotton. It was a feeling he knew well, the morning after a cocaine-induced high, that feeling of his brain burning and trying to sort itself out at the same time. He hadn't had that feeling in years, and there certainly were no similar substances accessible here. And furthermore, he was missing a whole day.

* * *

"What the hell have you been doing?" Sherlock slammed his fists down on John's breakfast table, causing it to jump slightly, spilling John's orange juice.

"What?"

"You did something yesterday. To me. To my head. What was it? Tell me now!" The easiest way to make Sherlock Holmes angry was to mess with his most treasured possession, his brain. And it seemed that someone—maybe John, maybe just someone he worked with—had done just that. John just sat, spluttering. "I woke up this morning with a roaring headache, the sort one only gets when recovering from having been drugged. I have no memory of yesterday. Now  _tell me what you did_!"

"Sher—Number 16, I didn't do anything, I'm your friend!" John looked around at the people staring. "I wouldn't have done anything, alright? Now just…calm down."

"Not until I get some answers," Sherlock replied, storming away.

"Damn it," John whispered, and followed.

* * *

Sherlock flung open the doors of the hospital. There was a nagging sensation that this wasn't the first time he'd come bounding through the doors, seeking the answers for why he felt like his mind had been scrubbed raw. This time, he grabbed the first person he saw, 97, by the lapels.

"What have you done to me?"

The smaller man stammered. "I—I don't know—"

"Of course you do. You're in charge. I suspected John at first, but he's nowhere near high enough in the ranks to have knowledge of these sorts of operations." John winced. His name was something he only wanted Sherlock to know. If anyone found out he even had a name he might be in major trouble.

"John?"

"Number 58. You're obfuscating. Tell me what drug you used and why!" Sherlock was within inches of 97's face. Fortunately, the doors slid open to reveal Number 2 watching.

"I believe I can explain everything."

"Then do it."

"In private," Number 2 said. He walked off, and Sherlock followed. They seemed to be taking an underground passage to the Green Dome, because quite soon, they were in Number 2's circular room. "You're…rebellious."

"I don't like being contained, no." Sherlock made it a point to not break eye contact, to stare Number 2 down.

"You've been corrupting Number 58." Sherlock snorted. "Hear me out, please. This Village has been very carefully constructed to be the perfect society. The crime rate is nonexistent except for crimes committed by a few deviants. Unmutuals. People unwilling to follow—"

"Unwilling to be ground down like wheat."

"Unwilling to follow the status quo." 2 sat down, and offered some water to Sherlock—there were no alcoholic beverages in the Village. "You're an intelligent person, Number 16, and I was hoping you'd see the value in this situation."

"Oh, I do, I just don't like it." Sherlock's nostrils flared. "And I like it even less when people decide to play God with my brain."

* * *

"Number 58, do you know why we've called you in here?"

John sat before a council, the heads of the hospital before him, passing judgment. "I think so, yeah. Because of Sh—Number 16."

"Yes. And because you let his corruption taint you. You've used a name. You've listened to his stories. Why?" He couldn't see them. They were in the darkness and he was in a bright spotlight.

 _Because my father's dying words told me that somewhere else was better than this. Because I was curious. Because I was bored. Because there's been something missing in my life._  "I was trying to appease him. I thought maybe if I listened to him, he wouldn't cause trouble."

Silence.

"In light of the fact that your actions were community-minded, we will let you off with nothing more severe than a warning. On two conditions."

"Okay."

"You must cease to use your Outsider name, and you must never make contact with Number 16 again."


	6. 6

Sherlock decided that, as he was branded unmutual, he'd live up to that name. The day the tannoy speaker, that robotically cheery voice, had said as much, he'd smiled. He was well used to being alone, no one to care for him (except the annoyingly overbearing Mycroft), no friends, few willing acquaintances, so this was by no means a stretch. He almost preferred it to the  _perpetual hello how are yous_ and  _the you're looking good todays!_

So today, instead of picking up his black blazer with its white piping and the blue turtleneck, he picked up a bedsheet.

He wore it—and nothing else—because he was bored, primarily. Bored and stubborn and rebellious and angry. He was certainly turning heads—away from him. He walked down the Village lawn, sat in the Stone Boat, observed a human chess match, and even attended an orchestra concert (he'd been banned from playing.) It amused him to see their reactions. Confusion, terror, shame, and even laughter from several of the elderly Villagers.

"Number 16," a voice warned. It was one of the wardens from the hospital. Not John, of course, he hadn't seen John in weeks, but someone he recognized all the same.

"I don't answer to that."

"If you don't stop this nonsense, you'll be taken for Social Conversion. No one wants that."

"Then why threaten me with it?" Two rather burly men stepped forward. "Dull," was all the notion he gave it until he felt a sticky membrane on his hair and heard an alien roar. The Village guardian, Rover, stood(?) behind him. No way out. "I suppose it wouldn't do to convince you that I lost a bet?"

"Come with us, Number 16, we don't want this to get ugly."

"Afraid you'll break a nail?" Sherlock abandoned his sheet and sprinted off across the perfectly-manicured lawn. If he was going out, he was giving them all one last shock.

He made it ten yards before Rover swallowed him.

* * *

58 caught sight of his ex-friend in a hospital gown on a gurney, being wheeled into the operating theatre. "What's going on?" He tried to follow, but the larger men stepped in his way.

"You're not meant to have contact with him, remember?"

58 saw where they were taking Sherlock. Social Conversion. He felt weak.

* * *

_Eyes opening. Head hurts. The room feels wobbly._

What used to be Sherlock sat up and looked around his hospital room. Wasn't thinking a lot easier than this? He noticed things. Simple things. Man. Woman. Green. Blue. Sad.

"How are you, Number 16?"

"16," he repeated. "That's me."

"Yes, it is you. How are you?"

16 reached to his temple, where a bandage was stuck, and he pressed it, feeling a soft squish. "Sleepy. I want the sunlight. Salt air." The hospital personnel gave him some clothing and he slowly dressed himself. He turned and saw a man who looked familiar, though he couldn't place him. His head tilted. "I know you," he said, prompting the other man to burst into silent tears and walk away. "Wait, come back…I know you…"

* * *

16 had only vague memories. Memories of being lonely, of being angry, of being bored. But why? The Village was perfect. Everything he ever wanted was here. Even if he never saw the man who'd started crying again, he had other friends, friends from the hospital where he now lived half of the time. 78 and 22 and 107, mostly. They played together and read together. They painted. They drew. They were happy.

* * *

58 couldn't bear to go near Sherlock again. He'd known of other people who'd been Converted, but they'd never been his friend. They'd never been so brilliant. They'd never been so… _alive_. And even when 58 met the woman in his dream, he never told her about his name or his lessons, or anything else about Sherlock—about 16. He just wanted to fight the monsters who'd taken that genius and torn him to shreds.

He went to the beach.

* * *

16 always, even in his happy moments, felt like there was a hole in him. He never told anyone (well, except 292) that he wanted to leave. To want to leave meant he was broken, unhappy. In his dreams, sometimes, he was a different man. Someone strong, someone proud, someone clever. Everything that 16 wasn't. He just wanted to escape the limits of his feeble mind, to have his brain fly free.

He went to the beach.

* * *

Then there was only the ocean and the sky and the figure of a man, born with a number, given a name, yearning to sprout wings so as to attack this monstrous city from above.

Then there was only the ocean and the sky and the figure of a man, born with a name, given a number, yearning to sprout wings so as to fly into the clouds and never return to Earth.


End file.
